Further consultation on potential changes to legal regulation
Potential changes to improve efficiencies in the regulation of lawyers and to better protect consumers of legal services and lawyers.
The New Zealand Law Society Te Kāhui Ture o Aotearoa is consulting on potential amendments to the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006 (the Act) and the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act (Lawyers: Practice Rules) Regulations 2008 (Practice Rules) which would increase efficiencies in the regulation of the legal profession and better protect consumers of legal services and lawyers.
The Law Society considers the proposed changes to the Act and to the Practice Rules would:
1. Maintain public confidence in the complaints process and improve consumer protection by:
- Allowing for some flexibility in the disclosure of information about complaints to parties who are personally affected and other regulatory agencies.
- Ensuring the regulatory criteria for practise on own account applications more accurately reflects the risk posed by the applicant’s intended mode of practice.
- Allowing the Law Society to respond to regulatory risk by imposing bespoke conditions on lawyers’ practising certificates.
2. Create greater flexibility in the regulatory regime in respect of the orders that can be made by Standards Committees.
3. Ensure that resource within the regulatory framework is appropriately allocated.
4. Address inconsistencies in the regulatory regime.
The proposed amendments arise from work being undertaken by the Law Society to identify changes that can be made to the rules and regulations we operate under, and to our systems and processes that could positively enhance the current regulatory environment.
The Independent Review Report, commissioned by the Law Society and released in March 2023, recommended significant reform to the statutory and regulatory framework. Wholesale reform of the Act is required to implement fully many of the Independent Review’s recommendations, The Minister of Justice has signalled this is unlikely to be a priority for the current Government during this term.
However, there is the potential for discrete changes to the Act and secondary legislation. Law Society Chief Executive, Katie Rusbatch, says “these relatively confined amendments would enable the Law Society to operate in a more transparent and efficient manner for both consumers and the legal profession, until broader legislative change can be considered.”
Read more about the Law Society’s regulatory reform journey in LawTalk Issue 959.
A consultation document outlining the proposed changes to the Act and the Practice Rules is available on the Law Society website and consultation closed at 5.00pm on Friday 26 September 2025.